Rejected By The Alpha, Desired By The King

KAEL – POV

Ayla didn't sleep the night after her vision.

She paced the grove like a wolf hunting something it couldn't see. Her hands glowed faintly, runes surfacing on her skin unbidden. The First Luna's magic had always answered pain—but now, it pulsed with warning.

"She had your face," I said.

"She wasn't me," Ayla whispered.

Rylan burned sage into the ward-lines around the grove. Daya reinforced the old shields. Every wolf in the Council Hall could sense the shift.

Something was coming and it wore a crown.

We summoned the Council at dawn.

Ayla stood before them, her back straight, eyes storm-pinned.

"I saw her in the dreamscape," she said. "She wasn't shadow. She wasn't Seer. She was bonded—twice over. To something older than blood."

Rylan paled. "Dual-bonding is forbidden magic. Impossible magic."

Daya leaned forward. "Unless she was created."

I looked at Ayla.

"She said she had your face," I repeated.

Ayla nodded.

"She's not a mirror. She's a rival. Someone shaped in my wake, built to shatter what we've made."

We searched every archive. Every Seer ledger. Every hidden rite.

And we found it: The Rite of Echo. A cursed ritual, buried beneath false names.

To birth a copy of the First Luna.

A copy that had to be destroyed.

A copy that didn't die alone.

She took her creator with her.

***

"A clone," Rylan whispered. "But not just a reflection. A full arcane replica."

"With her own mind," Ayla said. "And her own rage."

I growled. "Why now?"

Daya stood. "Because now she has something to claim. A throne. A legacy. A bond not bound by force."

"She wants to take my place," Ayla murmured.

"No," I said.

"She wants to erase it."

That night, the wind shifted again.

The ash tree shook. Its blossoms turned black.

And at the edge of the grove, where no wolf had dared walk since the Bone Rite—

We found it.

A crown. Not of bone, of obsidian. Identical to Ayla's. Still wet with blood.

We kept the obsidian crown sealed in a circle of salt and ash.

It pulsed at night. Not with life. With memory.

Each time Ayla passed it, the bone runes on her arms throbbed.

"She's close," she said.

"She's watching."

Daya organized night patrols. Rylan reinforced the dome wards over the Council Hall. I doubled the guards—twice. But none of it eased the pressure in my chest.

Because this wasn't war.

It was infiltration.

Three wolves disappeared from the northern guard.

One returned. Eyes black. Voice wrong.

He fell dead at the ash tree's root, choking on his own tongue.

In his palm: a bone shard. Etched with Ayla's name and burned through the center.

"She's unbinding you," Rylan said.

Ayla's jaw clenched. "No. She's trying to prove I was never bound at all."

We traced her magic through the wards.

It coiled like smoke.

Around the council chambers.

Into the sacred tombs.

Beneath the root of the ash tree.

And there, we found it: A hollowed-out chamber. One Ayla hadn't carved. Inside, symbols twisted backward. Echoes of hers—but corrupted. Bent.

Where her truth healed, this one consumed.

Where Ayla remembered—this one rewrote.

We watched the grove from above.

Waited. Then, we saw her. Just after dusk.

Not walking.

Not cloaked.

Unmade.

She moved like Ayla. Stood like Ayla. But there was no breath in her chest. No fire in her blood, only mimicry.

Ayla stepped forward.

I reached for her.

She didn't stop.

"You're not me," she said.

The other Luna tilted her head.

"I don't need to be," she said. "I only need to be enough."

The grove burned around them, and the bond snapped taut. Not between Ayla and me. Between her—and it.

A mirror bond.

Crafted.

Forced.

The clone smiled.

"You think you earned your crown? They built me to prove you were always a glitch. A dream. A mistake that could be corrected."

"You're not a weapon," Ayla said. "You're a prison."

"I'm freedom. From you. From your truth. From their guilt."

She stepped forward and vanished.

The obsidian crown flared.

And I knew what came next wouldn't be politics.

It would be prophecy.

Versus revenge.

The clone vanished like smoke. But she left a wound in the air. A tether.

The magic lingered longer than any of us expected. It slithered between the roots, soaked the ash blossoms, pulsed against the Council stones. It was more than mimicry. It was a warning.

Ayla didn't sleep.

She meditated beneath the tree, runes flaring on her arms, her breath shallow but controlled.

"She's studying you," Rylan said. "She learns through presence. Not instinct. That's what makes her dangerous."

Daya sharpened her blades. "That's what makes her predictable."

But I wasn't sure.

This Luna wasn't moving like a predator.

She was moving like a challenger.

Two nights passed.

Three more wolves vanished.

Each one returned.

Each one bore a new scar.

The same scar.

A perfect crescent over the heart.

"She's marking them," Ayla whispered.

"Preparing a claim," Rylan said.

"No," I growled. "She's preparing for court."

On the fourth night, the moon turned red.

Not eclipse.

Summoning.

The clone returned.

This time, not in silence. Not in shadow. With followers. 

Fifteen wolves. Eyes glazed. Voices gone. Bond-marked.

Standing in formation beneath the blackened moon. She stood at their head, an obsidian crown lit from within.

Her voice reached the grove before her body did.

"I offer the Realm a choice: truth that burns, or memory that binds."

Ayla stepped forward.

"I won't fight a shadow."

The clone smiled.

"You won't have to."

And from behind her, someone stepped forward.

Someone we all recognized, Cassia.

She wasn't dead.

She wasn't sane.

She was marked.

By the false Luna.

"I found her where you left her," the clone said. "And she remembered everything."

Kael froze.

My breath hitched.

Cassia looked at me, her eyes bright with something broken.

"She's the Luna," Cassia whispered.

"She always was."

Ayla didn't flinch.

But the bond between us spasmed.

The clone watched.

Smiled.

And said:

"You only get to burn the world once, Ayla. The second time… it burns you."

She raised her hand and the wolves moved. Not to fight.

To kneel.